


In My Grave, I'll Rot

by TheNillaWafer



Category: Persona 5
Genre: (Goro mentioned and implied but not actually in the fic wHOOPS), (basically NG+ but Akira remembers some shit while no one else does), M/M, NG+, New Game Plus, Persona 5 Spoilers, Spoilers, Time Loop, Time Travel, pegoryu
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 18:47:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25041130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheNillaWafer/pseuds/TheNillaWafer
Summary: "New Game +", or rather, a chance to try again. A divine deal. A do over. A redo.Call it what you may, but it's sad that it takes Akira a good few loops to truly realize what all he's given up and thrown away... just to make it all right for once.(spoilers for in-game november (vanilla p5)
Relationships: Kurusu Akira/Sakamoto Ryuji, Persona 5 Protagonist/Sakamoto Ryuji
Comments: 5
Kudos: 47





	In My Grave, I'll Rot

**Author's Note:**

> "Nilla", you sit and rock back in your chair, "...now THAT's a name I haven't heard in AGES!"
> 
> Yep, back at it with the P5 brainrot because it never really left it's just simmered in my mind for years before coming out full force and infecting me with The Gay. So to anyone who's been awaiting that one BNHA fic..... goddamn I'm so sorry. 
> 
> I know I SHOULD be focused more on my personal writing, my original content that I'd like to pursue, but Head Empty. Pegoryu only.  
> It's my Emotional Support Ship, your honor.
> 
> ANYWAY, glad to be back (albeit hardly proof-read, WHOOPS), and I hope you enjoy!

“Maaaaaan, sunset already?!” A voice whined beside him. Akira didn’t need to even check his phone for the time anymore, he had this scene practically memorized down pat before him. 

Ryuji, loud and animated as always, would take this next moment to pause in the middle of the bustling Shibuya street during rush hour and crane his neck almost completely straight up to steal a glance at the cotton candy skies past the towering cityscape. Furthermore, an older couple right behind them will shuffle out of the way, mumbling a snide remark about how “inconsiderate kids these days are”. 

That little fact makes Akira chuckle inwardly everytime anymore, a minute detail he hadn’t noticed the first few times revisiting this scene. Now, as he sits and watches everything play out now, he can’t help but feel a strange sense of longing. 

_ What’s different this time?  _

It’s usually the finer details, maybe this time the one man shuffling past has a brown cane instead of a black one, or maybe... did he even have one to begin with? It’s too minor of a detail to note, but Akira has learned it’s easier to focus on something that isn’t as important instead of dealing with the dull pain in his chest having to watch Ryuji gaze up at the city-framed sky above him with those large, bright glistening eyes of his. 

Akira’s undergone this how many times, now?

Two times? Ten? Twenty-seven?  _ Sixty?  _

Every time gets more and more convoluted, each with a single purpose that seems so distant and yet so oddly close by. So far, Death still creeps its heinous frame in at that terrible, sickening instant the Cruise Ship shudders slam.

_ Every. Single. Time.  _

Still, it hurts to think that, perhaps, the sparkle in Ryuji’s eye once laid elsewhere instead of the sinking sunset. 

No, not perhaps,  _ it did.  _

Suddenly a chilling gust rushed past and Akira felt a shiver race down his back, despite it only being October.  _ October already...? Shit. I’m running out of time. I have to make sure I can talk to Ake— _

“Oi! Renren!” 

Aki—no, no, of course not. Ren— _ At what point did that change? What was the catalyst for that?— _ glanced up to reconnect with the same smooth caramel eyes and large crooked grin he’s known for months (“Lifetimes, actually,” Ak— _ Ren  _ wishes he could laugh). With a soft shake of his head, he waved off the concern, downplaying the chronological crisis in his head. 

They’re still together, smack dab in the middle of the street. They should move, Aki— _ sonuvabitch _ —Ren realized. 

They never do, not yet at least. 

It’s another couple minutes until they do so, but in the meantime Ren simply watched as Ryuji scowled and moved to take a step closer towards him. Several actually. Ren can practically count,  _ 1, 2, 3...  _ Then, the suddenly weight of a hand resting clamped upon his slender shoulder—

_ Aha! That’s a new one! _ Ryuji usually used his right hand to clasp the left shoulder. It’s the reverse now, left hand to right shoulder!  _ Perhaps... hopefully that means the plan will work this time, something will alter the timeline and Ake— _

“What’s wrong dude, ya lookin’ spaced out an’ shit. You good?”

He can’t place it. The gleam in Ryuji’s eyes isn’t as bright as before, Ren swears, like he’s looking at the bleak remnants of an explosive supernova, now just space debris burning out to nothing. Ryuji’s thin face furrows a little lighter this time around, the hard edges of muscle and bone not framed as dark in the contrasting shadows of the growing night. 

_ When... when did you stop looking at me like  _ that _?  _

There’s a split second; a flash image practically, of what Ren— _ A...Akira....?— _ believes to be more familiar, more  _ realistic,  _ and he curses at just how  _ detailed  _ everything feels in that second: Despite the night shadows having draped over the two like a veil, Ak—Ren— _ Goddammit?!—  _ can clearly make out the other boy’s features as he’s snuggled deep into a set of crumbled bedsheets. It... It doesn’t seem like his bedroom above Leblanc; this space is larger and it makes both of boys seem so small, so miniscule in the grand vastness. Before him, tufts of short disheveled hair dry and thick--because he  _ keeps bleaching it so brightly every single time it grows out--  _ spit out in all directions. Tired, sleepy dark eyes catch the glint of the dim moonlight and still shine brighter than the most dazzling diamonds this side of Tokyo could ever find. Peeking behind long, chapped, rough hands is an absolutely, dashingly  _ handsome  _ smirk of embarrassment and a blush of warm, tinted cheeks radiating against the cool night air of the room--

_ That hand. Was there—?! _

It’s here. 

Then it’s gone the next following instant. 

_ “Aki?” _

“...Y-Yeah?”

_ “You, uh... heh, you still... love me, right?” _

“W-What? Of course I do...”

“...Yeeeeeaaaaah, you sound pretty outta it, dude.” The blonde breaks out into a jovial laughter that practically  _ tears  _ Re—Aki—no wait, it  _ is  _ A— _ FUCK—Joker,  _ the only identity he  _ knows  _ has been concrete every single time he’s lived through these moments, these lives—back to the present reality. 

The sun seems to have sank down further behind the skyscrapers, the city lights beginning to take over in contrast against the darkening sky. 

Him and Ryuji have been out here for too long, shit.  _ Joker  _ has already deviated from the standard procedures of this timeline too far in the span of the last ten minutes alone. Goddammit, goddammit,  _ goddammit!— _ He needs to stay focused. November is fast approaching. He won't have much time left to waste if he can’t seek out Akechi and convince him to stop the  _ bullshit  _ he’s been screwing around in the Metaverse and just drop the Revenge Shit and—

_ “We’ll be...uh... t-together forever... r-right?” _

Before words can even begin to take form, the warmth on his shoulder evaporates, and  _ the transfer student  _ looks wide-eyed at an otherwise nonchalant and relaxed Ryuji, “C’mon man, it’s gettin’ late. Wouldn’t want Boss to lock you outta the shop an’ shit on his way out...!” 

_ He’s already deviated this far. The timeline this time around it already fucked. He’ll... he’ll try and save Akechi again next time if this isn’t it now. But... He has this chance to gain closure for something else entirely.  _

“Ryuji,”  _ the nameless boy  _ asks, feeling suddenly so overwhelmed and overwrought with emotion as he reaches to snatch the same thick hand of Ryuji’s that rested upon his shoulder seconds before. It’s everything at once, bombarding and sudden and overloading, he feels himself act solely on autopilot as his brain begins to implode.

_ All the timelines are blending together anymore...  _

_ What do I have now? What did I have then? Is anything the same, truthfully? _

_ Can I... go back? _

There’s no heart, no strength, to be able to look Ryuji in the eye as he fortifies himself to ask, “Do you... Do you remem...?” A sigh. Dark eyes screwed shut as a slender, stealthy hand thumbs over the knuckles of Ryuji’s own chapped and cracked one.The skin is rough, leathery almost. It’s his armor he’s donned while going up against the world every single time so far.  _ That hasn’t changed. _

Index finger.

Middle finger.

...

...It’s bare. 

But of course,  _ PhanThief transfer Joker kid,  _ wanted to laugh aloud. They  _ were  _ both still only in high school. 

Or really, at this point, Ryuji was the true high schooler. Concerned with such trivial matters like looking “cool” and making the Phantom Thieves the best they can be, keeping his grades up, maybe fawning over  _ girls this time, _ so on and so on...

And what did  _ Leader delinquent  _ have? 

A shattered hope that he’d still be able to save the same guy who’d ultimately backstab him, attempt to put a bullet through his head, fail, and then die a grisly, terrible death point blank at the hands of some  _ imposter  _ wearing his own face, his own flesh and skin--again.

...and again.

...and again.

...and ag— _ ENOUGH. _

Ryuji, furrowing his brow in a more serious concern, moved to yank his hand away sheepishly, but  _ Thief kid JoTransferKer StudKident,  _ noted the movement to be too rough for his personal liking. “H-Hey Ren, w-what do ya mean, y-you’re creepin’ me out here...?”

_ Ren. Ren Amamiya. That’s right. That’s the timeline we’re in this time around.  _

He can’t bring himself to finish asking, as if it was never his question to ask.  _ Akira Kurusu  _ might have. But then again,  _ he  _ wouldn’t have had to. Not with his beloved fiancée or husband by his side, basking in tales of success and overcoming the pain of failure...

The two of them would face life together, head on, side by side and hand in hand until they were old and grey, probably spewing childish nonsense at each other in their old ages from some little worn out bench in a park. Together, Ryuji and  _ Akira.  _

_ Ren  _ had no place in that.

He threw something perfectly good away to take a risk as gargantuan as this. All to save that  _ goddamned detective. _

_...Looking back, was... was it worth it?  _

_ Don’t be stupid. All of the Phantom Thieves deserve the best. They deserve to  _ live,  _ to bask in the glory of  _ life. 

_ All of them deserve the best.  _

_ All... of them... _

_...No matter what. _

Akira Kurusu, Ren Amamiya. Joker. The transfer student. The delinquent. Everyone,  _ the one,  _ made that bed, and now he’d lay in it— _ continue to lay right damn in that fucking bed until he got everyone the life he’d work and slave and take all the hits for.  _

_ One where  _ everyone  _ makes it out  _ alive _.  _

“...Nevermind,” Ren mutters, “...s’nothing.” 

Ryuji merely shrugs and moves to finally pick up pace along the still-busy street, Ren simply following silently in tow. 

Still, there laid a strange feeling welling in Ren’s chest. A heaviness, a sadness, like that of a metaphorical  _ sinking  _ feeling he couldn’t simply will away. 

_ When... When did you stop looking at me like that?  _

_ When did I lose myself so bad to this idiotic dream of mine...? _

Ren dared to swipe a quick, single glance at the blonde a couple strides ahead of him. He dared, and quickly  _ regretted:  _

_ When did you... stop being the love of my life, Ryuji? _


End file.
